Irish Genealogy News - Pages

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys TD, has announced that the Government is to acquire the National Monument at Nos. 14-17 Moore Street, Dublin.

The decision will allow for a 1916 Commemorative Centre to be developed at the site.

No. 16 Moore Street was the location of the final council of war of the Leaders of the 1916 Rising and is where the decision to surrender was made. The house at No. 16, together with the surrounding buildings at Nos. 14, 15 and 17, were declared a national monument in 2007.

Making the announcement, Minister Heather Humphreys said: "[The decision] puts an end to the uncertainty surrounding the future of these buildings and ensures that they will be accessible to all who are interested in the history of the 1916 Rising. I hope that this project will be completed during the Centenary Year as a fitting tribute to the leaders of the Easter Rising.”

She advised that she will shortly bring further proposals to Government outlining plans to safeguard and fully restore the buildings, and to create a 1916 Commemorative Centre on the site. The requisite approval under the National Monuments Acts is already in place for the restoration project and the proposed Commemorative Centre.

Today’s decision means that:

the Moore Street national monument will now come into public ownership

the long-term future of this historical landmark is secured

the 1916 Commemorative Centre to be developed on the site will be run as a public facility with access for citizens and visitors alike

the new Commemorative Centre will enhance and complement the 1916 visitor facility currently being developed in the GPO.

Monday, 30 March 2015

The Dublin Correspondent has joined the British Newspaper Archive's line up. The paper – a moderate pro-British Government title that, for a short time had the largest circulation in Ireland – started publication in 1806 as The Correspondent, only adding the 'Dublin' to its name in 1823.

More than 150 editions of the paper have been uploaded, most dating from that year, with just a handful of issues for 1824 and 1825.

There are now 71 Irish titles in the BNA database. They can be accessed via a BNA subscription or as part of FindMyPast's Ireland and World subscription packages.

This latest addition means there are a total of 400 titles in the British Newspaper Archive offering 10,616,161 pages of historical material.

Wednesday 1 April:World War One Ancestors, with Ian Montgomery. Part of the Your Family Tree lunchtime lecture series. Venue: PRONI, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. Starts at 1pm. Free but need to book at proni@dcalni.gov.uk or (+44) 028 90 534800.

Wednesday 1 April to 30 May:The Irish at Gallipoli – an exhibition. Drawing on sources from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive, the exhibition will give an overview of the campaign and highlight the personal storiesof a number of Irish-born WW1 soldiers who fought in Gallipoli and other 'theatres of war'. Venue: Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2.

Friday 3 April: The geoarchaeology of County Down's High Crosses and Round Towers, with Ian Meighan. Host: Monuments and Building Record Public Lectures 2015. Venue: Pat Collins Reading Room, Waterman House, 5-33 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2LA. Free. No need to book early but limited space so arrive early to secure your seat.

Saturday 4 April:One Million Dubliners - film screening to mark the first anniversary of the death of historian, tour guide and good guy Shane MacThomáis. Host: Stoneybatter & Smithfield People's History Project. Venue: The Elbowroom, 32 Brunswick St N, Dublin 7. 4pm. Free, but there will be a collection of donations to Pieta House.

Monday 6 April:The Road to the Rising, a major bank holiday event in Dublin's O'Connell Street and nearby venues. Host: RTE, An Post and Dublin City Council. Full programme explores Ireland on the eve of Revolution, as well as the ideas, people and the socio-economic forces which would shape the events of Easter Week 1916. Re-enactments, memorabilia roadshow, talks, screenings and family fun. Need to book for some events. Programme.

Tuesday 7 April:Remembering 1916: The Urban Folklore Project, with Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh. First of the Dublin City & Irish Folklore series of lunchtime lectures at City Hall. Venue: Council Chamber, Dublin City Hall. 1:05 to 1:50pm. Free. No booking required.

Friday 10 April and Saturday 11 April:Irish Women in the First World War era. Host: Women's History Association of Ireland 2015 Conference. Venue: Maynooth University, Co Kildare. Need to book. Details.

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

The Ulster Historical Foundation (ULF) has added more than 27,000 Church of Ireland records for Counties Antrim and Down to its AncestryIreland database. You can see the details in the table below.

These new baptism, marriage and burial records are from 24 parishes and were transcribed by the ULF's Emeritus Research Director, Dr Brian Trainor. The burial registers contain a wealth of information of use to both the family and local historian and are full of interesting entries. The ULF has provided a useful overview, and the following details:

In Ardkeen's register there was noted the burial entry of Henry Cleland, aged around four months old, in 1823 with a note by the minister that he was “found dead in a field with a letter mentioning his name. Perished from cold and hunger; Coroner's inquest wilful murder.”

Occupations were sometimes recorded, especially if the deceased was in the military or the clergy. Ballyculter burial register occasionally contained the occupation of the deceased, particularly if they were servants. For example, the following men were recorded as :Daniel Kain “Lord Bangor’s man”, William Wilson “gardener to Mr Price” and Roger Wade “steward to Mr Hoey”. This may be the only record of their employment which now exists.

Carrickfergus register contained an entry of the burial in May 1776 of Mr McCracken, “the buckle beggar”. A buckle beggar was someone who performed marriage ceremonies “in a clandestine and irregular manner”.

The history of a local area can also be seen through the Church records. For example one can see in the Blaris (Lisburn) register the arrival of the Duke of Schomberg’s army in September 1689 by the increase of the deceased who were serving in that army. These were not only soldiers, for example in December 1689 John Redbird “master baker to [the] Duke of Schomberg” died and in January 1690 Thomas Mansfield, “one of King William’s bakers” was buried.

The burial records of sailors, fishermen and those who had drowned are found in coastal areas. In Ballyhalbert in January 1864, for example, three men who had been shipwrecked were buried, including John Morrison from Douglas on the Isle of Man. This register also records the burials of two men from the HM Cruiser Bayano which was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915. Also Donaghadee’s burial register contains an entry for James Conlin, a tide-waiter (customs officer) who was “killed by a fall on the quay” in October 1783.

In the majority of entries the cause of death was not recorded, but unusual incidents were often noted by the minister. For example in Ballyphilip, the death of Patrick Kelly, aged 15 years from Portaferry, in June 1876 is recorded as being from "a fall from a velocipede” (an early bicycle). Carrickfergus CI’s register details the burials of four men in October 1752 who were “killed with the bursting of a cannon” while Magheralin’s records contain an entry for Edward Lunn, an innkeeper who was buried in July 1817; he “died suddenly at Maze races”.

Many of the burial records also contain the name of the father, husband or next of kin of the deceased, providing additional information on each family. Some also record ages at death and, occasionally, occupations.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin is launching an app which will allow visitors to access multimedia information on key features of the Cathedral through their mobile devices.

The app uses innovative iBeacon technology, which will automatically illuminate key points of interest on visitors’ mobile devices as they self-guide through the Cathedral. iBeacons are small transmitters, which have been installed at strategic locations within the Cathedral.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral will be the first fully iBeacon enabled visitor attraction in Ireland and the app has been especially developed for the Cathedral in a partnership with appybeacons.

At the launch later today, Dean Victor Stacey will be joined by Minister of State for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Michael Ring TD, for a tour of the Cathedral using the new app. Both will be equipped with iPads and big headphones and will navigate between key features of the Cathedral including the famous Saint Patrick statue, the Cathedral’s impressive organ and Jonathan Swift’s grave.

The app provides details of service times, a brief history of the historic building, an audio guide for the buildings, "Cathedral Tales", and videos about Saint Patrick's cathedral. Download the app.

Tuesday, 24 March 2015

An important early 14th-century manuscript produced at St Mary’s Abbey in Dublin has been returned to its city of origin, after 400 years, courtesy of Trinity College Library (TCL).

Lost to the world of scholarship since the 18th century, it has not been in Ireland since the 16th century, and it is the first Irish medieval manuscript to be offered for public sale in over 100 years. TCL is thought to have paid about a quarter of a million euros to secure the purchase.

St Mary's was the wealthiest monastic house in medieval Ireland and important enough to host parliament on many occasions.

TCL intend to digitise the manuscript, as well as use it to promote research and scholarship and popular interest. You can find out more in the 5-minute video below.

Monday, 23 March 2015

Saunder's News Letter, a paper published from 1755 to 1879. Some 1,838 editions have been uploaded this week. The majority date from 1783 to 1787 when the paper was published six days a week. Less frequent editions are also available for February to November 1794 and January to December 1795. Cork Advertising Gazette. All 206 editions from October 1855 to October 1859 have been uploaded for this weekly paper. I'm not sure if the paper stopped publishing or if these are the only surviving editions, but it will be the full extent of the holding for this title.

By my reckoning, there are now 70 Irish titles in the British Newspaper Archive. They're all available as part of FindMyPast's Ireland and World subscription packages, too.

Tuesday 24 March: "Better to die by the sword than to die of starvation”: protest and resistance during the Great Famine, with John Cunningham. Host: Aughty Famine Working Group. Venue: Lady Gregory Hotel, Gort, Co. Galway. 8pm. Free. Details (pdf).

Wednesday 25 March:Virtue and Vice: Political Rhetoric and Popular Action across the Atlantic during the Irish Land War, with Andrew Phemister. Host: University of Edinburgh; Modern Irish History Seminar Programme. Venue: University of Edinburgh, Room G.13, William Robertson Wing, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, UK. 5pm. Free. All welcome. Details.

Thursday 26 March:Remembering 1916, a HistoryIreland Hedge School. Venue: Lecture Theatre, Ulster Museum. Botanic Gardens, Belfast BT9 5AB. 7–9pm.(Refreshments and guided tours of the Ulster Museum’s 1916 artefacts in the new Modern History gallery, will be available from 6:15pm.) Free. Need to book.

Saturday 28 March:Family History Day. A full day seminar. A mix of practical information and case studies suitable for beginners or for those who have more experience in genealogical research. Venue: Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. Booking not required, but it's recommended to come early to ensure a place.

Tuesday 31 March:Families associated with the lands west of the River Fergus in "An Leabhar Muimneach" or "The Munster Book", with Dr Cathy Swift. Host: Kilrush and District Historical Society. Venue: Teach Ceoil, Grace Street, Kilrush, Co Clare. 8pm. Admission: KDHS members free/non-members €5. All welcome.

Wednesday 1 April:World War One Ancestors, with Ian Montgomery. Part of the Your Family Tree lunchtime lecture series. Venue: PRONI, Titanic Boulevard, Belfast. Starts at 1pm. Free but need to book at proni@dcalni.gov.uk or (+44) 028 90 534800.

Wednesday 1 April to 30 May:The Irish at Gallipoli – an exhibition. Drawing on sources from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association Archive, the exhibition will give an overview of the campaign and highlight the personal storiesof a number of Irish-born WW1 soldiers who fought in Gallipoli and other 'theatres of war'. Venue: Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2.

Friday 3 April: The geoarchaeology of County Down's High Crosses and Round Towers, with Ian Meighan. Host: Monuments and Building Record Public Lectures 2015. Venue: Pat Collins Reading Room, Waterman House, 5-33 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2LA. Free. No need to book early but limited space so arrive early to secure your seat.

Saturday 4 April:One Million Dubliners - film screening to mark the first anniversary of the death of historian, tour guide and good guy Shane MacThomáis. Host: Stoneybatter & Smithfield People's History Project. Venue: The Elbowroom, 32 Brunswick St N, Dublin 7. 4pm. Free, but there will be a collection of donations to Pieta House.

Monday 6 April:The Road to the Rising, a major bank holiday event in Dublin's O'Connell Street and nearby venues. Host: RTE, An Post and Dublin City Council. Full programme explores Ireland on the eve of Revolution, as well as the ideas, people and the socio-economic forces which would shape the events of Easter Week 1916. Re-enactments, memorabilia roadshow, talks, screenings and family fun. Need to book for some events. Programme.

Friday, 20 March 2015

Filming for Vikings, the History Channel production with a successful three seasons under its belt, wants to find a minimum 8,000 extras to work on season 4, which will be filmed in Ireland from April. Most of the filming will be in Dublin and Wicklow.

The Canadian/Irish production team has announced three dates for the selection process:

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is working in partnership with the Ministerial Advisory Group on Ulster Scots, the Ulster Scots Agency (USA) and the Ulster-Scots Community Network, to host a six-week series of lunchtime lectures commencing 20 May 2015.

Lecture topics are not yet available but speakers will include Cormac McSparron, Andrew Gault, Laura Spence, Frank Ferguson and Kathryn White.

The venue will alternate between PRONI's offices in Titanic Boulevard and the USA's offices at the Corn Exchange, 31 Gordon Street, Belfast, BT1 2LG. They'll all start at 1pm. I'd expect them to all be on Wednesdays, too, so you might want to mark up your diary while we await the details.

There's a strong Irish flavour in this Friday's FindMyPast package, not least the Diocesan and Prerogative Wills & Administration Indexes 1595–1858, which I was certainly not expecting to be delivered this month. I love surprises! Here are the details:

Diocesan and Prerogative Wills & Administration Indexes 1595–1858

This collection of more than 364,000 records contains indexes of all the wills and associated papers proved in Ireland's ecclesiastical courts up to 1858. From that date, the civil courts handled probate issues.

Unfortunately, most of the pre-1858 records were held at the PRO in the Four Courts when it went up in flames in 1922. This collection holds some of the surviving records and copies that weren't in the PRO when it was destroyed. It includes six volumes of surviving Prerogative Will Books and one volume of Cause papers (described by FindMyPast as '1810 inventory of records, books & papers, with an index to the Cause Papers 1670-1810 List of original wills, deeds, etc. in the Cause Papers').

The will books cover:

1644 – 1684

1706-1728

1728-1729

1777 (A-L only)

1813 (K-Z only)

1834 (A-E only)

While the amount of information in the books may vary, each record will include the deceased’s name, residence, diocese and the year the will was proved.

A small number of very lucky researchers will also find full details of the will, including who benefitted and what the estate entailed.

This record-set holds more than 218,000 entries and will be of great value to those with middle-class ancestors. In the main, marriage licences were sought only by those who owned property and/or wanted to avoid the publicity of Banns, and both parties to the marriage had to stump up a bond of surety. By the 19th century, they had become something of a trendy statement of status.

Labourers and tenant-farmers don't figure in this collection.

Each record in the collection contains a transcript and an image of the original bond register. The amount of information varies but most will include the names of the couple, the date of their marriage, residence, occupation, and rank or status.

While the 1901 (and the 1911) census is available free of charge at the National Archives of Ireland's Genealogy (NAIG) website, the collection now joining FindMyPast's database offers a new and more detailed search facility. It allows researchers to search the collection for more than one household member, by birth year and by variants on the spelling of first and last names.

A detailed transcript of each census return is provided, as is a link to the free images on the NAIG site.

If you've had trouble finding ancestors on the NAIG website, this version should be checked out.

They're wonderful. At six inches to one mile, the detail is fabulous, with each dwelling and every typographical feature noted. I've been getting lost in the back lanes of Northern Ireland for the last hour or so, zooming in and out to my little heart's content. And I don't even have any family connections with the North!

As far as I can tell, there's no purchasing mechanism for downloads of the 1830s maps, but you can view them without charge. Presumably the purchasing element will be added when more maps join the site. (I hope they'll get someone who isn't a 'map-head' to write the sales pages.)

"Other historical maps will be developed over the coming months," said the Minister at the launch reception. "This will provide an opportunity for anyone in the world to easily view and purchase maps of their ancestors’ home as it existed almost 200 years ago.”

It seemed mighty unusual for a St Patrick's Day to come and go without any big Irish record collection being released, but that's how it looked from this eastern side of the Atlantic.

Until this morning, when news was carried over the waves of a partnership between Ancestry.com and the Dublin-based IrishNewsArchives which has resulted in a new standalone site: IrishNewspapers.com.

There's an explanation for why the news took 48 hours to reach these shores. The new site, IrishNewspapers.com, is available only in the USA. When I visit it, I'm re-directed to IrishNewsArchive.com, so I can't comment on how it functions, although I did manage to catch a screengrab of the home page before the redirect kicked in:

Phillip Martin of Irish News Archives spoke to Irish Genealogy News this morning to reveal more about this exciting development for the family-owned company.

"IrishNewspapers.com is derived from the current Irish News Archives but will be overseen in the US by Ancestry's Newspapers.com," he explained. "Partnering with Newspapers.com offers Irish News Archives a pathway to the expansive US market.

"The new US site has launched with a first tranche of Irish historical newspapers from across the island. More titles will be added in due course."

Subscriptions to the US site cost $19.99 monthly and $99.99 annually (Ireland site is €30 per month or €178 per year).

A marked difference between the two sites is that IrishNewspapers.com will offer editions up to 1980, while the Irish market, via the existing IrishNewsArchive.com, will continue to offer a growing range of Irish newspaper titles up to the current year.

Phillip also told me of a new subscription feature available via IrishNewsArchive. New members can avail of a 3-day free trial before signing up for longer term subscriptions. Researchers sign up, with credit card details, for a month's subscription, but they aren't charged until the three days is up. They can cancel the subscription at anytime during the three-day trial.

UPDATE 26 March 2015: Kilkenny-raised genealogist Joe Buggy has access to the IrishNewspapers.com because he's now based in Washington DC; he's written a thorough review of the new website, providing a list of all the papers in the database, on his Townland of Origin blog.

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Here's some good news, delivered specially for St Patrick's Day, from the National Archives of Ireland (NAI).

You know those Griffith's Valuation Field, House & Quarto books and Testamentary records (see below) we've been waiting on for rather a long time... well, they're ready-and-waiting for upload to the NAI's free Genealogy website. All the problems I mentioned some time back with the GV books have been resolved.

Unfortunately, it's the 'waiting' part of ready-and-waiting where there is still a problem.

The NAI has been without an IT manager since June last year and cannot modify, remove or add records to its Genealogy website until a replacement is appointed. This is obviously very frustrating, not only to us family historians who are keen to get stuck into some absolutely fresh records but also to FindMyPast.ie who have to wait for simultaneous upload before they can launch them on their database (also free of charge).

Catriona Crowe, Head of Special Projects at the NAI, told Irish Genealogy News that it's been frustrating for the NAI, too. "We haven't wanted to be this tardy getting the records released. We rely very heavily on the website to get our material out there for people to enjoy and explore. But without an IT manager, we can't add material to the site.

"We will, however, be holding interviews for an IT manager next week and we hope to have someone in place in early April. The website can then be updated and the material released."

So, this is what we can expect in the near future:

GV Field Books: information about the size and quality of the soil of an individual land holding

GV House Books: these recorded the occupier's name so, to genealogists, they are the most worthy of study of the Valuation Books. They also record details of living conditions, not just in terms of space but also the materials used for walls and roofs, and of outbuildings. Some even include sketches of the property, barns and outbuildings

GV Quarto Books: While the other books deal with rural settings, the Quarto books cover small and medium-sized towns.

I also asked Catriona about cataloguing progress on the Registered Papers of the Chief Secretary's Office (CSORP) collection. This particular collection has its own website - www.csorp.nationalarchives.ie - and contains details of all kinds of fascinating material from the early 19th century, but work on the cataloguing project came to a grinding halt more than a year ago due to the departure of the dedicated conservator.

At that point, five years' worth of papers had been catalogued: 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821 and 1822.

There's good news here, too. Two people have been working on the project since September 2014 and will soon complete another seven-year tranche of catalogued items. This 1823–1829 material will make its way online in a couple of months, after the GV and testamentary records.

Below are the updates from Ireland Genealogy Project Archives (IGP-web) of the resources added in the first two weeks of March. As you can see, the project to transcribe and publish records of men in the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1848 is moving on at a pace, but there are also some other very useful headstone inscriptions, church register entries and unusual records in the mix:

Monday, 16 March 2015

There are usually a few special discounts flying around for St Patrick's Day and this year is no exception. Here are a few that have come my way. If I hear of anymore in the next 24 hours, I'll post them here.

UHF's births, deaths, marriage, deaths & headstone records

The Ulster Historical Foundation (UHF) has a special 50% off St Patrick's Day sale that will continue for the duration of its North American Lecture Tour. The UHF database at AncestryIreland holds two million records from across Counties Antrim and Down and Belfast. The records include RC, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian baptism, marriages and burials parish register entries, as well as civil marriages for Counties Antrim and Down, and civil birth records for Belfast.

The half price sale will end on 30 March.

IrishTimes Training Course: Tracing your Irish ancestors

Designed by the well-known genealogist John Grenham, this online course is hugely practical and provides 12-months access so that you can choose your own pace of study. It is structured around a mixture of presentations and tutorials so that it is engaging and interactive, and is delivered over 11 modules covering records, resources and research techniques. It combines detailed analysis of the relevant sources.

I don't have a note of the current standard price of the course (it cost €99 two years ago) but the special offer for St Patrick's is just €29.99. I'm not sure how long that price will hold, so don't delay if you want to take ITT up on the offer.

UPDATE, 18 March: Due to 'phenomenol demand', the special offer has been extended to the end of March.

E-book British and Irish Newspapers

A 50% discount is available until the end of the month on the e-book version of British and Irish Newspapers by Chris Paton of BritishGenes fame. The book was published last May, a little before the British Newspaper Archive cranked up its green button and increased its coverage of Irish titles, but it's still a very useful booklet for learning the most likely places to access newspapers online and offline, as well as pointing you in the direction of some lesser known titles that have great potential for your research.

The ebook is available through Gen-ebooks.com, part of the Australian publisher Gould Genealogy, and is normally sold for AU$7.95. The discounted price of AU$3.95 converts (at today's rates) to around €2.86/£2.04/US$3.02. You can order the book or view a free sample here.

FindMyPast's World collection of 2billion records

FindMyPast is offering a first month's access to its World collection for just €1, £1, $1. The standard month's price for this package is €14.95, £12.95, $19.95, so significant savings are available for access to FindMyPast's collection of two billion records, including millions of worldwide Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, the largest online collection of Irish Family History records, and more than 10 million British and Irish newspaper pages dating back to 1710, plus much more.

Three 'archived' webinars have been made available for viewing free of charge until Wednesday 18 March. All three are webinars presented by Judith Eccles Wight, owner of Wight House Research, an Irish genealogy specialist. The subjects of the three webinars are:

Saturday 21 March:Town and country in late medieval Ireland, a conference. Hosts: Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, the Discovery Programme, Maynooth University, the Dublin Medieval Society and the University of Bristol. Venue: Helen Roe Theatre, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. Free, but need to book. 9:30am to 5pm.

Sunday 22 March:Can we let go of history? a Newstalk's Talking History live broadcast discussing commemoration. Venue: National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. 7pm. Host Patrick Geoghegan will lead a panel of special guests in discussion, before opening the floor to questions. Free. All welcome.

Tuesday 24 March: "Better to die by the sword than to die of starvation”: protest and resistance during the Great Famine, with John Cunningham. Host: Aughty Famine Working Group. Venue: Lady Gregory Hotel, Gort, Co. Galway. 8pm. Free. Details (pdf).

Wednesday 25 March:Virtue and Vice: Political Rhetoric and Popular Action across the Atlantic during the Irish Land War, with Andrew Phemister. Host: University of Edinburgh; Modern Irish History Seminar Programme. Venue: University of Edinburgh, Room G.13, William Robertson Wing, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, UK. 5pm. Free. All welcome. Details.

Thursday 26 March:Remembering 1916, a HistoryIreland Hedge School. Venue: Lecture Theatre, Ulster Museum. Botanic Gardens, Belfast BT9 5AB. 7–9pm.(Refreshments and guided tours of the Ulster Museum’s 1916 artefacts in the new Modern History gallery, will be available from 6:15pm.) Free. Need to book.

Saturday 28 March:Family History Day. A full day seminar. A mix of practical information and case studies suitable for beginners or for those who have more experience in genealogical research. Venue: Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. Booking not required, but it's recommended to come early to ensure a place.

Friday, 13 March 2015

Just in time for St Patrick's Day, Irish Genealogy News has published a 20-page e-booklet providing brief details of all the brand-new or, in some cases, upgraded Irish Genealogy resources released in 2014.

All of the collections featuring in the e-booklet were the subject of blogposts on Irish Genealogy News at the time of their release.

Arranged by type of resource ie Census, Emigration Records, Newspapers etc, the booklet is a handy aide memoire of recently-available resources useful to Irish family historians.

It costs just €2.50 (that's about £1.95 or US$2.2.75) and you can pay via a secure payment facility. Just click the Add to Cart button below.

The Irish Genealogical Research Society (IGRS) has launched an enhanced version of 'The Irish Genealogist Names Database'.

The Irish Genealogist (TIG) is the journal of the IGRS and is highly regarded by serious genealogists for its learned approach to research and the depth of study presented by its contributors. It has been published since 1937, the year after the Society was founded by a select group of well-known genealogists with the intention of gathering together transcriptions and copies of the records lost in the 1922 fire at the Four Courts.

Over time, this remit was extended so that the journal allowed members to share the results of their work through many thousands of genealogy related articles, family histories and transcriptions of unusual records and sources. Typically, members have submitted information from newspapers, parish registers, family bibles, genealogies, voters lists, pedigrees, membership rolls, deeds, marriage settlements, census substitutes, land and tenure surveys, marriage license bonds, courts records, wills and much more besides.

A searchable TIG Names INDEX has been freely available on the IGRS website, IrishAncestors.ie, for a over a year. It allows researchers to quickly search for their ancestor's name and discover whether it appeared in any article of The Irish Genealogist published between 1937 and 2001.

Successful searches of the TIG Names INDEX return a note of the page and TIG volume numbers where the article was published, allowing the researcher to hunt down a copy of the relevant journal, which is available in most major libraries around the world, and on CD.

The Names INDEX already holds more than a quarter of a million names, and this will be extended further during 2015 when the journals for 2002 to 2014 are indexed.

The Society's latest development, The Irish Genealogist Names Database, sees an important upgrade to the existing Name INDEX. It not only returns details of how many times an ancestor's name might appear, it also provides a direct link to a downloadable copy of the published article(s).

Phase One of this enhancement to The Irish Genealogist Names Database delivers Volume 10 – the four journals published in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 – in a fully searchable format, with linked articles. This is being made accessible, free of charge, to non-members.

All articles from TIG Volumes 11 to 13, ie all the journals published 2002 to 2014 inclusive, will be linked to The Irish Genealogist Names Database over the next nine months. These will be accessible only to IGRS members.

The March-April issue of Irish Lives Remembered has been published and the front cover is sure to raise a smile from all readers.

As always, the magazine has a global spread and this issue focuses on tracing Irish ancestors with connections to County Leitrm as well as those who emigrated and settled in Ohio and New Zealand. There are nearly forty pages devoted to research in those three areas alone.

In addition, there's the third and final part of an analysis of Princess Charlene of Monaco's Irish family history as well as features on DNA and photo analysis, news of upcoming events, discounts and much more.

You can view and/or download a free copy of the magazine by clicking on the cover image.

Thursday, 12 March 2015

This won't come as any great surprise. Origins was bought by DH Thomson Family History, the parent of FindMyPast, a year ago and the site has been carrying a banner announcing its closure for most of the past few months. In the meantime, all the Origins records have migrated to the FindMyPast database.

Origins was the first company to set up a pay-as you-go model for online family history records and had a particularly strong line-up of Irish records at a time when there was very little else available for those researching ancestors from Ireland.

Timeline's Director, Nicola Morris MAPGI, told Irish Genealogy News that the service aims to help researchers quickly and easily obtain some of the Irish family history records that can be viewed or copied only by visiting repositories in Dublin.

"Although there are many genealogical resources now available online, some vital records are not so readily obtainable for those who cannot make a personal visit," she said.

"Timeline’s Genealogy Clerk Service offers those researchers the opportunity to order a digital image of the source they wish to research. We have introduced a simple ordering system for digitial images of such vital sources as civil birth, marriage and death registrations, as well as the Valuation Office Revision Books for the Republic of Ireland. None of these is currently available to view online."

Timeline's clerks can also obtain copies of manuscript sources from Dublin's libraries and archives. If, for example, you've found a reference to a manuscript estate rental held in the National Library or a pre-1858 will in the National Archives, the Irish Genealogy Clerk Service will obtain copy documents on your behalf and send them on to you. Or perhaps you want to verify a transcribed parish register entry with a copy of the original entry? Again, Timeline's Genealogy Clerks can obtain a digital image of the manuscript for you.

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Wednesday, 11 March 2015

An online 1916 Easter Rising Necrology was launched last night by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and John Green, Chairman of Glasnevin Trust.

The Necrology, which has been compiled by Glasnevin Trust, contains the names of all 485 people who lost their lives during or as a direct result of the 1916 rising, including innocent civilians, British soldiers and members of the Irish Volunteers. It's the first time a list of this scale has been collated and made available online.

This major piece of research revealed many interesting and previously unknown facts, the most striking of which found that the majority (54%) of the total dead were civilians, rather than British Army or Rebel forces. The full Necrology and statistical analysis is available at GlasnevinTrust.ie.

The names will be engraved on a new memorial at Glasnevin Cemetery that will be unveiled on the centenary of the Rebellion.

Speaking at the launch, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said: "I want to congratulate Glasnevin Trust for undertaking this important research which will allow us to remember and honour every individual who lost their life during the 1916 Rising. It brings home to us the very real impact that the events of Easter 1916 had on ordinary members of the public as well as those directly involved in the Rising itself. I am particularly pleased that this material is now available, as we in Government continue our work to develop a comprehensive and inclusive programme of events to commemorate the Easter Rising."